With Rich Donors, a More Candid Romney Emerges

Source: NY Times

LAS VEGAS — In Chicago, Mitt Romney regaled wealthy donors with a boyhood memory of volunteering to clean up a litter-strewn football field, the kind of humanizing tale he typically avoids on the campaign trail.

In Palm Beach, Fla., he walked contributors through a list of the federal agencies he planned to shut down or combine, a level of specificity he had not offered to voters.

With their unvarnished tone and political candor, Mr. Romney’s secretly recorded comments to donors in Boca Raton, Fla. — in which he said 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government handouts and do not pay income taxes — seemed jarring and unusual to those who have digested a year’s worth of his public statements. They suggest the possibility of two Romneys: the careful candidate behind the lectern at a rally, and the blunt man behind closed doors with Republican contributors.

Mr. Romney has disputed that characterization, arguing that his vision and values are consistent no matter who is in the audience. “You’re coming to my fund-raiser and this is the same message that I give to people, which is that we have a very different approach, the president and I,” he told reporters after the video began circulating.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/us/politics/with-donors-a-more-candid-romney-emerges.html?pagewanted=all#h

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The irony is that behind close doors with rich donors, Romney is more candid and relaxed about how he would attack programs benefitting the middle class. Will the real Romney please stand up? I guess he does when he feels at home with his posse.